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2018-11-15
Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice;
Alabama established a sentencing commission in 2000, and has utilized advisory sentencing standards in felonycases since 2006. In 2013, the Alabama Sentencing Standards grew to include presumptive standards for non-violent offenses. Alabama has a "truth in sentencing" statute that does not take effect until 2020 and will require the court to pronounce a minimum term and an extended term (120% of the minimum term) and mandates post-release supervision. Currently, however, offenders are sentenced to a definite term of imprisonment and may be released on parole, if eligible.
2018-08-03
Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice;
Nearly one million people are released or supervised under conditions established by state paroling authorities each year. The appointed members of those paroling authorities determine whether and when individuals are released from prison, how they are supervised post-release, and the punishment (including reincarceration) they may face for violating the conditions of their supervision. The power over an individual's liberty exercised by paroling authorities is vast, in some respects as much as sitting felony sentencing judges, more in some jurisdictions. How paroling authorities carry out their responsibilities matters to those sentenced, their families and their victims at the individual case level, as well as in the aggregate through the collective impact these decisions have on the key goals of managing criminal justice system costs, reducing recidivism and increasing public safety.
2018-08-03
Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice;
This report presents the findings of the Parole Exits and Revocation Knowledge System (PERKS) Project. What follows includes, but is not limited to, a consideration of the following: a) a review of existing prac-tices of states that are using structured revocation decision-making models, b) an assessment of enhanced risk, need, and responsivity tools to consider what personal and social capital or crime desistance variables would improve post-prison decision making by the Board, and c) a summary of suggested modifications of relevant policies and procedures
2018-08-01
Cities United;
This report looks at community violence that affects young African-American men and boys. It also provides goals that should be achieved and practices that contribute to community transformation as to make the cities safer for Black males. The report focuses on ways to implement a comprehensive, public health approach to violence and showcases some effective practices.
2018-07-01
IIE Center for Academic Mobility Research & Impact;
The fourth report from our 10-year tracking study of the Ford Foundation International Fellowships Program (IFP), Transformational Leaders and Social Change provides important insights into the personal, organizational, community, and societal impacts of IFP alumni in Kenya, Nigeria, Palestine, and South Africa, drawn from the perspectives of 361 IFP alumni and local stakeholders.
The results of this study show that the program had a positive impact on participants, with alumni saying that their IFP experience increased their confidence, awareness, self-identity, commitment, leadership, career advancement despite challenges upon re-entry at the end of the fellowship. Some alumni returned to face career barriers endemic to their community and home region, such as high unemployment rates and other labor market challenges. At an organizational level, alumni and community stakeholders said that these organizations now have a stronger work ethic, consistency, transparency, and accountability since alumni returned to their home communities. Stakeholders also said that the alumni they work with are more reliable and committed to getting the job done.
2018-05-04
Vera Institute of Justice;
The evidence for racial disparities in the criminal justice system is well documented. The disproportionate racial impact of certain laws and policies, as well as biased decision making by justice system actors, leads to higher rates of arrest and incarceration in low-income communities of color. However, there is no evidence that these widely disproportionate rates of criminal justice contact and incarceration are making us safer. This brief presents an overview of the ways in which America's history of racism and oppression continues to manifest in the criminal justice system, and a summary of research demonstrating how the system perpetuates the disparate treatment of black people. The evidence presented here helps account for the hugely disproportionate impact of mass incarceration on millions of black people, their families, and their communities.
2018-05-01
Robina Institute of Criminal Law and Criminal Justice;
The Robina Institute recently completed work with the Kansas Prisoner Review Board to improve and streamline their revocation process by reducing the number of offenders revoked on post-release supervision and reducing the time revoked offenders spend in prison. Dr. Edward Rhine, Assistant Professor Ebony Ruhland, and Dr. Julia Laskorunsky examined multiple decision points in the Kansas system to provide technical assistance and policy recommendation to the Board.
2018-04-02
Independent Sector;
The new foundation toolkit lifts up concrete ideas and examples for community and public foundations to encourage voter engagement among their grantees and networks. Strategies range from communications, resource sharing, and nonprofit trainings to integration into programs and grantmaking or donor and grantee education.
2018-03-28
Rights4Girls;
Both nationally and in the District of Columbia, boys have made up a vast majority of the juvenile justice population. Consequently, research, best practices, system reform efforts, and policies have been primarily based on the male population. In the past two decades, overall rates of youth involvement in the juvenile justice system have declined, yet the share of girls arrested, petitioned to court, placed on probation, and placed out of home has steadily increased. Due in part to a historical inattention to the unique drivers for girls into the juvenile justice system and the specific needs of justice-involved girls, jurisdictions around the country are seeing an increase in the rates of girls' involvement in the juvenile justice system. Over the past decade, Washington, D.C. (D.C.) has seen a significant increase in the share of girls in its juvenile justice system. This brief serves as a starting point to understand what is causing girls' increased contact with D.C.'s juvenile justice system, to highlight distinctions between girls' and boys' involvement in D.C.'s juvenile justice system, and to identify information gaps that must be addressed in order to reduce the number of system-involved girls and ensure that those girls who are already involved are receiving appropriate services and interventions. Major findings: Girls today make up a larger portion of system-involved youth than in previous years. » Over time, the proportion of 13 to 15-year-old girls entering the juvenile justice system has grown at the greatest rate. » Eighty-six percent of arrests of girls in D.C. are for non-violent, non-weapons related offenses. » In D.C., Black girls are significantly overrepresented in the juvenile justice system.
2018-03-19
Sentencing Project, The;
For decades, the United States of America has employed mass incarceration as a convenient answer to inconvenient questions. These policies have produced dramatic rates of incarceration, with a particularly disproportionate impact on communities of color. In addition to the range of harmful consequences to people of color, mass incarceration has been a failed policy in regard to public safety outcomes. Research has documented that the effect of imprisonment on crime rates has been modest, and that at current levels the scale of incarceration is well past the point of diminishing returns for public safety. Mass incarceration has diverted resources from prevention and treatment initiatives that could have produced far more effective approaches to crime reduction.In recent years, the U.S. government has addressed some of the glaring racial inequalities that permeate every aspect of its criminal justice system, but these efforts have been relatively modest in scope. The government continues to both foster and perpetuate inequalities in clear violation of its obligations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights as well as other international agreements.The proliferation of racial disparities in the U.S. criminal justice system has a profound impact on the lives of people of color. Behind each statistic lies the face of a young black man or woman whose potential has been cut short by a harsh prison sentence mandated by draconian drug laws. Behind each percentage point lies the face of a Latina child who will only know her parents through hurried, awkward visits in a prison visitation room. Behind each dataset lies a community of color bereft of hope because its young people have been locked away.It is the human face—a face of color—of the racial injustice of the United States criminal justice system that is the most compelling reason for reform. It is time for the United States to take affirmative steps to eliminate the racial disparities in its criminal justice system.
2018-03-13
NYCLU;
Across New York State tens of thousands of New Yorkers are held in city and county jails, not because they have been convicted of a crime, but because they cannot afford to pay for their release while awaiting trial.
The harms of unaffordable cash bail are unequivocal: people lose their jobs, homes and families while detained. People also forfeit their rights to trial when pleading guilty in exchange for release. Yet little has been known about how many people across the state have been locked up because they did not have the means to pay bail, about the charges they faced or how long they were kept in jail.
To better understand the impact of bail practices in New York, in 2015 the New York Civil Liberties Union sent Freedom of Information Law requests to a sample of eight small, medium and large counties across the state asking for five years of data. The information we received offers a stark glimpse into what New Yorkers have had to endure.
2018-02-23
Bipartisan Policy Center;
The Bipartisan Policy Center's review of law enforcement agencies in Atlanta, Austin, Charlotte, Denver, and Los Angeles shows that the actual operation of local law enforcement agencies and their work with immigration enforcement agencies is more complex and nuanced than is often reported in the public debate.
